DAIRY PRICES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 July 1939, Page 6

DAIRY PRICES

MR MULHOLLAND'S SURVEY

AT FARMERS’ UNION CONFERENCE NEED OF FAIR BALANCE WITH COSTS. ORIGINAL UNDERTAKING RECALLED. (By Telegraph.) (Special to “Times-Age.’ ) WELLINGTON, This Day. Discussing dairy guaranteed prices, in his address at Hie annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union today, the Dominion President (Mr W. W. Mulholland) said he agreed with the Minister of Marketing (Mr Nash) that it was impossible to carry on a guaranteed price scheme that would result in repeated heavy deficits in the Dairy Account. “But I would remind him,” Mr Mulholland added, “that notwithstanding what it may be possible to read into the formula of the

Primary Products Marketing Act, he did promise to pay the farmer a price that would meet all his costs. “The large deficit which seems probable in the account this season, even under the price that has been paid, inadequate though it was to meet, the farmers’ costs, is a matter of concern.” Mr Mulholland continued. “With the overdraft piling up in what cannot be regarded as other than a good price season, what is going to happen should there be a heavy fall in the overseas price, making the pi ice available to the dairy farmer very much lower, if in addition, he has the debit in the Dairy Account hung round his neck? An attempt to sustain a policy of piling costs on costs by an unbalanced Dairy Industry Account would bo a deadly danger to the industry. Consequently, the question of what the Government is going to do about the deficit is one of great moment. FINANCIAL POLICY. , “As a matter of financial policy the Minister was right in refusing to pay a price which he knew would result in a very large deficit, but on the other hand the Government must face the position that the raising of farmers’ prices by Government action was the foundation of its policy of raising wages and other costs, and the foundation having failed it is essential that the Government should immediately review the whole structure. It was a pity that the Minister had not been content to rest his action in reducing the prices recommended by the Advisory Committee on the real reason, which was that market prices did not warrant it. But he went on to try and justify it by an attack on the production standards which the committee had set up. The suggestion that the Minister, with no practical knowledge, found an error in the standards of production set up by experts after long and arduous inquiry and minute consideration of very intricate matters is too ridiculous to be given credence, but the industry could not afford to leave these alterations unchallenged, otherwise the dairy farmers might have been left in the position that silence had consented to the alterations that were made.” STABILISATION POLICY. After paying a tribute to the ability with which the chairman of the Dairy Board (Mr Hale) had brought the various organisations of the industry into agreement, Mr Mulholland continued: —"The offer made by the Minister of Marketing was that the dairy industry should accept the price paid in 1938-39 for 1939-40, and if they would do so he undertook that he would endeavour to get the trades unions to accept a standstill agreement in regard to wages. It will be ' seen that in this offer there was nothing definite except the acceptance by the industry of the 1938-39 price for next year. I do not mean by that to convey that there was any reason to doubt Mr Nash’s sincerity. He was absolutely sincere and was genuinely desirous of putting a stop to the continually ascending spiral of costs and prices. But he very evidently had no power to do more than make an appeal to the unions. I fopnd myself strong sympathetic towards an attempt to stabilise costs, and was prepared to recommend the industry to make to bring it about, but a close examination showed that the offer as it stood contained no promise of stability, it was never more than a hope, which recent events, particularly the number of strikes that have taken place in the last three , months against recent awards of the Arbitration Court, show to have been ; ill-founded. But supposing the offer ; could have been translated into fact, ! it was treating the farming commun- • ity in a decidedly unfair manner in , that the farmer was asked to stabilise his 1939-40 prices at considerably below his 1938 costs as ascertained by the Government’s 1938-39 Advisory Committee, while wages were to be stabilised at the present level of costs, thus putting the farmer at a considerable disadvantage. However, the attempt at stabilisation of wage rates seems to have failed and the unions are out to demand their full pound of flesh, apparently not realising that a considerable slice of it must be cut from their own but- ■ tocks, and it is difficult at the moment to see how stability is to be ' maintained. “Mr Nash deserves credit for his ! courage in facing the Federation of ‘ Labour Conference and urging that ■ the unions should not ask for any increases on wages for at least a year. Eventually, and perhaps soon, the Government will have to screw its courage up to the point of much more positive action than this, and when it does so it can be assured of the solid support of the farming community.”